Please save your time and money

Rating: 3/10 (16 July 2013)

I watched this movie with some friends despite telling myself a thousand times it was going to be terrible. The trailers never once hinted at anything that resembled a plot. But it was a cheap day, and I had nothing better to do. I'll start with the cast. It contains basically no "big-names", which isn't always a bad thing. Problem is, it also doesn't contain any good acting. At all. There was not a single watchable performance in the movie. I do feel a little bad for the actors, though, as the writing was so terrible Daniel-Day Lewis would have struggled to say any of it convincingly. Two actors in particular, Burn Gorman and Charlie Day who play the two scientist, give maybe the worst performances I've ever seen. They are not even good enough to put into a kid's film. I don't know if that's what the director wanted, if it is, that's one more knock against him.
Now the effects. I didn't really like Avatar, but I could at least appreciate the immense accomplishment of the visual effects. It was an unoriginal story, but it at least tried to develop it's characters. This film tried, barely, and failed terribly. It was impossible to care about anyone on screen. Back to the effects though. With nearly $200 million going straight to the CGI, they had to look good. It was nearly all you look at for 2 hours, after all. And that's all they look, good. Not "blow me away", or "coolest thing I've ever seen in a movie". Just good enough. Think Transformers meets Avatar. I heard Guillermo del Toro describe the movie as a "visual feast". It was closer to an assault on the eyes and ears for 2 hours. I looked away often because I knew I wasn't going to miss anything, and I didn't want to see it because I knew what would happen.
The plot. Unoriginal is an understatement. It's disappointingly simple and uncreative. The dialogue is laughable. That's not just a saying. Me and my friends laughed in the theatre at multiple lines. Again, bad writing and bad acting.
This was not an enjoyable movie to see, unless you truly don't care at all about intelligence in a film. You may say I just don't know how to "have fun" while watching a movie. That's like a little kid showing me Power Rangers episode and then wondering why I didn't love it. Do yourself a favour and skip this movie.